Ngon Quá, Recipes of Life - participant
Ngon Quá (which means very delicious in Vietnamese) is a community cooking project by British Vietnamese artist Will Pham inspired by Recipes of Life, facilitated by Dr Lili Ly and Dr Angela Byrne, and commissioned by Deptford X Arts Festival.
Throughout the Summer, 2nd generation Vietnamese & Chinese/Vietnamese community participants met up in Deptford, London (where there is a large Vietnamese community) to collectively cook a recipe each week and reflect on their Vietnamese heritage through 'Recipes of Life'. We used food to reflect on memories, story sharing and intergenerational healing, within the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War.
We also took a trip to Margate, a seaside town in Kent, UK with the 1st generation elders. At the end of the project, we collectively made a metaphorical recipe of life to reflect us as 2nd generation British Vietnamese and we chose to make a recipe for belonging.
All this accumulated into a 3 channel multi-video installation of the Elderly Luncheon Club at the Evelyn Community Centre, a cooking session with the 2nd generation community and the Margate trip. The video installation was shown as part of Deptford X Arts Festival in July 2025.
Images taken by the 2nd generation community members. July 2025